SPP HIGHLIGHTS

• Reinforcement of the strategy of sustainable public procurement in the “Recovery Plan” adopted by the Walloon Government on 29 October 2021.

• The strategy of sustainable public procurement was initiated in 2013.
• In 2017, the Walloon government adopted its second Action Plan for responsible (sustainable) public purchases. Several tools and actions have already been developed during those action plans for sustainable public purchases (2013-2020) such as a helpdesk to assist contracting authorities in the integration of environmental, social and ethical clauses.
• Public procurement identified as a lever to initiate Wallonia’s transition in the first strategy of the Circular Economy adopted on 4 February 2021.

SPP TARGETS

On 29 October 2021, Wallonia adopted its “Recovery plan”, including measures for sustainable public procurement. The projects 302 and 303 encourage transversal activities in SPP. The overall SPP themes include:

• Increasing the participation of SMEs in public procurement;
• Generalizing the insertion of social, environmental (including circular) and ethical clauses;
• Enhancing the collaboration in sustainable public procurement between the contracting regional and local public buyers and also companies tendering.

Those measures came after two Action Plan for responsible (sustainable) public and will contribute to the achievement of Wallonia’s international commitments in terms of sustainable development, especially SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production. The main objective is to encourage public procurements without social dumping, SME-friendly, fostering professional insertion, contributing to the fight against climate change and contributing to efficient resources management.

PUBLIC PROCUREMENT OBSERVATORY

In 2019, the Public Procurement Observatory was created. One of its missions is to carry out monitoring of SPP as well as thematic studies to identify best practices. For example, a study on environmental clauses in public procurements has helped to identify some issues in this field. Consequently, several proposals were made to the Walloon Government to improve the environmental performance of public work procurement.

TOOLS

The Walloon Region has developed several tools to make its public procurement more sustainable.

• The Government of Wallonia began testing the inclusion of social clauses in 2013 and their use was made mandatory for regional work public procurement by a Circular of 21 July 2016. A decree of 2 May 2019 also makes the local authorities’ use of regional subsidies contingent on the inclusion of a social clause. The clause has been designed to be flexible, meaning that a company can decide whether to provide placements for trainees directly in their own workforce, or to subcontract specific work to social enterprises, which aims to integrate people with disabilities, or disadvantaged people. The result is a partnership approach to professional integration between public buyer, companies, social economy enterprises and training organizations. Wallonia has also created a system of facilitators, working as a helpdesk to assist public buyers in integrating clauses into tenders, and to help companies to execute them. The so-called “social clause facilitators” were appointed within the organizations that naturally serve as a contact point for questions for each stakeholder: support administrations for the public authorities, and the construction sector federation for the companies. These facilitators work as a network. They meet every month in order to discuss and solve issues that have arisen in specific procurements.
• A Green Deal on circular purchasing was launched in November 2019. To date 170 organizations have signed up. In 2021 the Green Deal enabled the organization of four thematic workshops. In addition, a meeting between buyers and suppliers involved about one hundred people.

Recovery Plan of WalloniaAction Plan 2017-2019